So What Are You Anyway?

The story "So What Are You Anyway" by Lawrence Hill is about racism; a young girl named Carole is seated next to a couple named Henry and Betty Norton who question her about her race. Carole being a child doesn't understand the concept of race or why it would matter to these complete strangers. They continue to pester her and ask her intrusive questions when they are aware that she doesn't understand and that she doesn't feel comfortable about the questions they are asking her, for example they said things like "You know, what are you? What race?" they continue to verbally harass this young girl even though they realize that she doesn't understand what race is by saying "Say you had a colouring book. What colour would you make your dad?" Carole says that "she feels as if he is asking her a bad question. It is as if he is asking her something dirty, or touching her in a bad place" when Mr. Norton asked her about her race. Carole finally has had enough of their questions and bursts asking how they would feel if she did the same to them. In the end Carole gets moved to a different seat and the Mrs. Norton telling her husband "talk about sensitive" which only proves that they are still ignorant as to why their actions where wrong. They didn't comprehend that their behaviour was not only invasive but disrespectful, and completely unnecessary.

The Story of an Hour

What I believe to be the true meaning of  "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin. Mrs. Mallard and Mr. Mallard have been having marital issues. Mrs. Mallard believes her husband died in a train accident. At first she is upset and right away accepts that her husband is dead. She then goes to a quiet place to mourn and she is slowly dying. She welcomes death as she contemplates what she has to live for anymore, now that her husband has passed. She claims that she never really loved him and in the end you found out her name which is Louise because she was no longer considered Mrs. Mallard and therefore had no more ties to Mr. Mallard. As she was dying she whispered "free, free, free" because she is free from her duties as a wife, free from her loveless marriage, and free from the pain she has in her heart. In her last moments she realized that she no longer wanted to be seen as a possession belonging to someone else she wanted to be free. Then her husband Brently Mallard entered the house travel stained, carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the accident and was unaware that there even was one. He was most likely having an affair that is why he had a grip-sack on hand or travelled alone to have sometime away from his wife. During the moment he walked in Josephine made a cry and Richard shielded Brently from his wife as she died.

Why I Want A Wife

My class read an article called "Why I Want A Wife" by Judy Brady. It discussed all the reasons as to why that is so. She uses satire to get her point across. She wants a wife not for love but for someone to dedicate their whole life to pleasing their partner. This style of writing is very effective because it gets the point of the article across by exaggerating the roles of wives in a household which are true to an extent.

According to the article a wife's duties are to:

1. Support their partner and children while they go to school to continue their education
2. To keep track and organize everyone's appointments
3. Care for the children and arrange for others to care for them when the wife is working
4. Tend to their partners physical needs
5. Clean and cook for the partner
6. Listen to their partner's complains
7. Take care of their partner's social lives
8. Tend to the needs of guests while not bothering them
9. Is sensitive to their partner's sexual needs but only to satisfy their partner not themselves
10. Understands if their partner decides to replace them with another wife

 She uses these examples to create a "perfect wife" that will everything asked of them. It is a ridiculous concept but some people believe this to be true. She explains all the duties of a wife in detail, while the duty of the partner is to focus on themselves and complain about how hard their life is while the wife's duty is to listen and sympathize with them. According to this article a wife's job is to make the husband and children happy. She describes the role of a wife as a job more than a partnership between a couple. She is describing someone that doesn't exist to prove that  wives are human too, they are not superhuman beings that can do everything perfectly. They need help from their partner, it is a team effort and should take care of each other.

All about that bass

There has been a lot of controversy revolving around the song "All about that bass" by Meghan Trainor. Especially those involving the topics of body shaming and feminism. She says things like "every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top" but then says "you know I won't be no stick figure silicone barbie doll" and "go ahead and tell them skinny bitches that" which is very controversial to the main focus of the song which is body positivity, while she continuously puts down woman who are thinner and implies that they are fake, "bitches", and have "stick figures;" this is a poor way to convince people to love their body type by putting another one down to validate it. Meghan also says "my mama, she told me don't worry about your size. She says boys like a little more booty to hold at night" which promotes young women to think that their bodies should fit the ideals of what men believe to be beautiful. By promoting this it causes young women to put their self-worth into what men think of them and their bodies, instead of telling them to love themselves because you only have one body, as long as you are healthy and take care of your body, your size shouldn't matter to anyone. It upsets me that this song is so popular even with the mixed messages in it. I have had many conversations about this song with my friends and it hurts me seeing them upset because of the way Meghan Trainor attacks their bodies in that song and having people all over the world singing it; probably not aware of what message it is sending them. Which is that their bodies aren't beautiful, which is completely untrue. Many people think that it's just a song but it has a powerful message to those with a different body type. Meghan Trainor sings about the media saying "I see the magazine workin' that photoshop" she describes a world that believes that thinner is better but her promoting that bigger is better, is not the right way to go about this issue because no body type is better than any other. We all deserve to feel good about are bodies and to feel beautiful whether you are larger or thinner or anything in-between.

Domestic Violence: An Argumentative Essay

           Is blaming the victim a norm in society when it comes to domestic violence? People don't always realize that domestic abuse is not just damaging someone physically, but it can be harming the victim emotionally, verbally, financially, sexually, and psychologically. The roots of domestic violence can be attributed to a variety of cultural, social, economic, and psychological factors. As a learned behavior, domestic violence is modeled by individuals, institutions, and society, which may influence the perspectives of children and adults regarding its acceptability. This may be learned through personal experiences of victimization, observations of victim abuse in the past, and living in a culture of violence (e.g., violent movies or video games, community norms, and cultural beliefs).

           Unfortunately, there are many misconceptions about victims of domestic violence has led to harmful stereotypes and myths about who they are and the realities of their abuse. Consequently, victims of domestic violence often feel stigmatized and misunderstood by the people in their lives. These people may be well-intended family members and friends or persons trained to help them, such as social workers, police officers, or doctors. Some example of these myths are that victims provoke and deserve the violence they experience, victims of domestic violence are weak and always want help, and only poor, uneducated women are victims of domestic violence. These are the types of stereo typical questions that victims of domestic abuse are associated with which are extremely untrue. Victims provoke and deserve the violence they experience, this is usually said to the victim from the abuser to justify what they are doing to the victim and also a way to belittle the victims self-worth. Victims of domestic violence are weak and always want help; it is not weak for victims to ask for help but they are a diverse group of individuals that may not ask for help or refuse it, while some do accept help from others or ask for it. It depends on their situation; the reasons may vary as to why they are not accepting help from fear of being harmed by their partner, may not be ready to leave the relationship, or they may not trust people because of past efforts that have failed.

         Before the 1970's domestic violence was seen as a "private matter" in society. Meant to be dealt within the home, where the victims cry for support and a safe environment ignored because it wasn't socially acceptable for people to help or ask for help when they were being abused. There was nowhere for victims to go for formal help or support. When awareness and recognition of the issue grew, groups of women organized a movement, focusing on the safety needs of victims and the barriers and social attitudes contributing to domestic violence. Volunteers established safe havens and crisis services for victims of domestic violence in their homes and held meetings where they began to define violence against women as a political issue. This grass roots effort, commonly referred to as the "Battered Women's Movement," revolutionized the responses to injustices against women into a social movement that forms the foundation of existing domestic violence advocacy and community-based programs throughout the country. The need for safe alternatives for victims of domestic violence called for a major social transformation and the Battered Women's Movement was an essential part of that struggle. Feminists, community activists, and survivors of rape and domestic violence responded with three primary goals: (1) securing shelter and support for victims and their children, (2) improving legal and criminal justice responses, and (3) changing the public consciousness about domestic violence.

         It is a fact that females are victims of intimate partner violence at a rate about five times that of males, and that females account for 39 percent of hospital emergency department visits for violence-related injuries, and 84 percent of persons treated for intentional injuries caused by an intimate partner, and on average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in the United States every day. In 2000, 1,247 women were killed by an intimate partner. The same year, 440 men were killed by an intimate partner. This is proof of the dangers that victims of domestic violence face and the vary real possibility of them becoming a statistic because of just how many people get harmed. Which is a sad but true reality.

      Victims of abuse have suffered a lot through history to get the support from society and today are still being questioned for their actions or in actions, which are their choice and don't need the scrutiny of others to make the decisions for them.

I got my information from- https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/usermanuals/domesticviolence/domesticviolencec.cfm

5 Tips For College Students

1. Schedule your time- Manage  your time in order to be able to prioritize which assignments need to be done and when to do them. It can also be helpful to have 15-30 minute breaks to relax in between doing work, so that you are less overwhelmed and can focus more and write a better quality assignment, than you would have if you were stressed and frustrated.
2. Stay organized- It is important to be organized, so that you aren't searching for your assignments or misplacing them. You can stay organized by managing your time, keeping your notes clear,clean, and concise, have dividers to divide your binders for different chapters or subjects, and to keep your binder neat and clean.
3. Don't procrastinate- Procrastination is a hard habit to break but if you follow the first and second tip; managing your time and staying organized, then you can find time to study for all your assignments and tests, so that assignments don't keep piling up and staying organized so that you find all your assignments right away instead of searching for them last minute. Also reminding yourself why you are in college in the first place, to get an education then procrastination can be avoided.
4. Get enough sleep- This is important because you want to be aware of what is going on in your classes and not tired or falling asleep in class (literally.) Have a bed time so that you are able to get up on time as well as getting enough sleep to function well in class the next day and be energetic and aware in class.
5. Have fun- Remember to have sometime to yourself so that you aren't too stressed or overwhelmed. These are your college years; make plans with friends, watch a movie or your favourite show, and just relax for a while. Also remember to balance your life, too much fun or too much work is not a good thing, find a middle ground.

Keeping up appearances

For someone who always struggled with body image and self-esteem issues, keeping up appearances was always a big deal for me. I would put on a smile and act like everything was okay and avoid speaking up about my issues because I thought that the more I didn't address my problems, the more likely it would be that they would just disappear. I would put on this act for others to make myself seem more likable or more "attractive". Turning myself into whatever I think would please them. My close friends would get upset with me saying I wasn't being myself; I was still figuring who I was at that point in my life. I started to question my reasoning for caring so much about what others thought of me. Did it really matter to me that a random person I talked to once in my life connected to me because of a lie? I realized that the only person whose opinion of me that should matter, is my own. I am my own worst enemy and can be so critical of myself, but now I am more secure about who I am and don't bother keeping up appearances. I am happy with who I am now. In times of self doubt when I feel so overwhelmed and judged, I remind myself that many people come and go from my life but I will always have myself. That may sound really morose, but it is true. As long as what I am doing makes me happy and doesn't harm anyone else, then it shouldn't matter to anyone else what I am doing. In the wise words of Dr. Seuss "Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."